#jesus

Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is not inner discord between the private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#enemy #faith #jesus #jesus-christ #love

Those who meet Jesus always experience either joy or its opposites, either foretastes of Heaven or foretastes of Hell. Not everyone who meets Jesus is pleased, and not everyone is happy, but everyone is shocked. ↗

— Peter Kreeft

#christ #christianity #heaven #hell #jesus

Whatever the response to loss and tragedy, the experience seems to boil down to one journey--searching for Jesus. ↗

— W. Scott Lineberry

#loss #search #tragedy #experience

Whatever it was that people experience in Jesus has today come to be identified with medieval doctrines based on premodern assumptions that are no longer believable. That identification means that serious theological discussion seems to accomplish little more than to erect a division between the shouters and the disinterested. Jesus becomes the captive of the hysterically religious, the chronically fearful, the insecure and even the neurotic among us, or he becomes little more than a fading memory, the symbol of an age that is no more and a nostalgic reminder of our believing past. To me neither option is worth pursuing. Yet even understanding these things, I am still attracted to this Jesus and I will pursue him both relentlessly and passionately. I will not surrender the truth I believe I find in him either to those who seek to defend the indefensible or to those who want to be freed finally from premodern ideas that no longer make any sense. ↗

— John Shelby Spong

#age

(after asking Christ into his heart) I waited. And then, true to His promise, He came into my heart and my life. The moment was more than remarkable; it was the most realistic experience I'd ever had. I'm not sure what I expected; perhaps my life or my sins or a great white light would flash before my eyes; perhaps I'd feel a shock like being hit by a bolt of lightning. Instead, I felt no tremendous sensation, just a weightlessness and an enveloping calm that let me know that Christ had come into my heart. ↗

— Louis Zamperini

#heart #jesus #experience

He has a plan for everybody here and it’s all a matter of whether you answer it when He calls you. ↗

— Lacey Mosley

#flyleaf #god #inspirational #jesus #life

We are not to be occupied with our feelings or symptoms, or our faith or lack of faith, but only with what God has said ↗

— Gordon Lindsay

#faith #god #healing #jesus #revivalist

Jesus, who comes across in the Gospels as extraordinarily strong, begged in the garden, with drops of sweat like blood running down his face, that he might be spared the terrible cup ahead of him, the betrayal and abandonment by his friends, death on the cross. Because Jesus cried out in anguish, we may too. But our fear is less frequent and infinitely less if we are close to the Creator. Jesus, having cried out, then let his fear go, and moved on. ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#fear #jesus #death

Christians should be ready for a change because Jesus was the greatest changer in history. ↗

— Ralph Abernathy

#change #christians #greatest #history #jesus

The dripping blood our only drink, The bloody flesh our only food: In spite of which we like to think That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-- Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good. ↗

— T.S. Eliot

#good-friday #jesus #spirituality #food